This invention relates generally to a printing system and, more particularly, to a job ticket generating system with a user feedback image that is altered dynamically, with relatively little memory usage, as a result of setting a position on an electronically based scale.
In known network printing systems, of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,634 to Bonk et al. (Issued: Feb. 20, 1996) a job is developed at a workstation and communicated to a printer adapted to render the job in a format suitable for marking. To provide the printer with print control instructions, which may be extensive, a job ticket including information regarding the attributes of the job is communicated to the printer. An example of such job ticket is illustrated by FIG. 7 of the Bonk patent.
The capabilities associated with processing a job in a network context continues to expand and, as demonstrated by U.S. Pat. No. 5,220,674 to Morgan et al. (Issued: Jun. 15, 1993), a job can be transmitted to one of a host of printers by way of a suitable server. In order to keep pace with the full range of attributes offered by network printing systems, job ticket technology has advanced accordingly. An early advancement in the area of job ticket technology can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,079,723 to Herceg et al (Issued: Jan. 7, 1992). The principles taught by the Herceg patent are expanded upon in patents such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,289 to Rourke et al. (Issued: Mar. 14, 1995).
The job tickets of Herceg and Rourke use icons to access displays for adjustment of such attributes as image quality. In particular, icons for setting image quality are selected for the purpose of showing suitable settable scales, such as a settable scale for, among other image quality attributes, darkness. For the darkness scale a selected portion is darkened with an appropriate control and a numerical value is provided. This sort of display is also commonly found for image quality attributes such as contrast and brightness.
For one known digital copier with accompanying client software, scale representations for both contrast and brightness are provided at the client. Each scale has a default or zero position, referred to as "standard" position and extreme ends for decreasing contrast/brightness (e.g. -50%) and increasing contrast/brightness (e.g. +50%). These scales are well suited for their intended purpose, namely to set contrast or brightness to one of a plurality of levels, provided the user understands how the resulting output will correspond with the various level settings. In other words without some sort of feedback image, the user is relegated to an educated guess as to how the ultimate output will correspond with the level set. It would be desirable to provide a job ticket with a user feedback image, at least for certain image quality attributes, for determining to what extent such image quality attributes will impact ultimate output.
There are systems that permit a user to observe changes in contrast of a subject image. For example, a variety of image quality attributes of an image can be observed with an editing system of the type disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,204,665 to Bollman et al. (Issued: Apr. 20, 1993) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,806 to Venable et al. (Issued: Dec. 14, 1993). It is believed that the amount of memory space required by the approaches of Bollman and Venable is not insubstantial. For example, while the Bollman patent discloses an arrangement using a highly reduced set of colors for displaying an original image having a large number of colors, the values used at the user interface are still understood to comprehend at least 27 gray levels. The editing system of Bollman and Venable is believed to be unsuitable for use with a job ticket of the type used in many printing systems. It would be desirable to provide a way of showing the effect of image quality change on a user feedback image without overly taxing the memory constraints of a printing system in which the job ticket is intended to be employed.
Providing a suitable demonstration of contrast or brightness for a user feedback image employing relatively few gray levels while providing a wide range of incremental image quality settings is believed to present some difficulties. For example, it has been found that providing a wide range of increments for contrast or brightness setting when using relatively few gray levels can be problematic; however, under certain circumstances, lack of memory may dictate that only a relatively few gray levels are usable. It would be desirable to provide a system for showing the effects of image quality changes on a user feedback system that both uses relatively few gray levels to manipulate the user feedback image and provides a large range of incremental steps in showing the image quality changes.
Disclosures of all of the patents cited and/or discussed above in this Background are incorporated herein by reference.